Iris came into our lives in January of 2001. My sister and a US Forest Service ranger had found her, and her mother, abandoned and wandering through the Clackamas Wilderness area. It is unknown how long they had been lost, though the puppy was near ten months old. Her mother was elusive, and escaped both my sister and the ranger’s grasp, yet Iris, as I finally named her, decided that hanging around with humans was a better option for her.
Iris was a very skinny youngster when we took possession of her. She immediately took a liking to us and our home. Right off the bat, I could tell that this dog was a special being. She was extremely well mannered, gentle, curious, and boy, what an athlete that she was! One time we were walking along Clackamas Road near our home, and Iris spotted a squirrel running up a tree. Iris broke free, and jumped up high enough into the tree to get about seven feet off of the ground. That squirrel barely escaped her leaping grasp, which placed Iris in a fork of the main trunk of the tree. She was to fall out of the tree into the brush below, unharmed. I think that while she wandered the wilderness with her mother, she learned to be a small critter hunter just to keep alive, and she had the physical skill package to keep eating. .She had an amazingly graceful stride, and when she decided to run, it brought the greatest joy, and a thrill, to me as I witnessed one of nature’s greatest athletes in motion.
Iris’s second set of family became my sister and her now deceased husband, Larry. But, Iris spent the vast majority of her time with us. She was our constant companion on hiking adventures, and Iris was a true outdoors friend. She hiked a multitude of Oregon Coast, Mt. Adams, Mt Hood and Mt. St. Helens trails, as well as numerous Columbia River Gorge trails. She also graced the trails of Northern California, where she enjoyed the Redwoods as much, or more so, than we did. She would lead all hikers on trails, running far out in advance to scout the trail, and make sure that it was safe for us. She would always return back to us to encourage us further, or to prevent us for progressing whenever she sensed danger. If we hiked twelve miles, she hiked, and ran, at least twenty miles during the hike. At least two times she prevented Sharon from heading off of the trail in dangerous directions, so she was our outdoor adventure angel.
I was quite the runner in those days, as well, logging at least six miles a day during my training periods. I would take Iris with me, and on major stretches I would unleash the beautiful girl, and let her run free. She moved with a fluid grace like I had never seen in any animal before, or since. I would sprint ahead sometimes, and she would zoom past me, and look back, as if to goad me to run even faster. When I engaged my own fastest speeds, she would flow along beside me, running with a shared joy, and then speed off ahead of me, and not stop until I slowed down, or changed directions. My heart literally soared with her, even when my body could not quite keep up with her.
She slept next to our bed at night on a cushion. She never bothered us as we slept, and was a perfect companion for us at home. She was a most gracious canine hostess for all that visited us, and she was friendly with all domesticated animals, including our grandson’s cat who came to stay with us for a week. She would offer her body as a pillow whenever our grandsons visited, and needed to take a nap on our couch.
I loved Iris as much as any parent could love their own child. I did not have any children, and my grandchildren through my wife Sharon were physically unavailable to me, so Iris was my surrogate daughter. I was so proud of her, while she became the very manifestation of God’s love for me over the years that I was to be her steward..
In 2005, my father brought home another dog, a beautiful Husky puppy named Rocky, to replace his recently deceased Samoyed dog Peaches. Iris and Rocky became fast friends, and it was obvious that they enjoyed their time together in the home, and out hiking together wherever we went when we took our father with us. Rocky tended towards over exuberance, and Iris would occasionally give Rocky a lesson in manners, a lesson that my father was unwilling to deliver. But Rocky and Iris became good friends to each other,
In April of 2007, two cottonwood trees along Kellogg Creek fell across the the middle of our home, causing immense damage.
On December 1, 2007, at 3:45 in the morning, Sharon and I awoke to a piercing cry beside our bed. I rushed down to iris’s side, and held her as she died. I asked Sharon if I should try to resuscitate, but Sharon said it appeared beyond our ability to bring her back, and we had to let her die in our arms. We were heartbroken and devastated, and we both then knew a loss that equaled any that I had ever experienced in my life. Our Spirit Dog had left us, and life would never be the same.
I felt a crushing guilt at the loss of our treasured love. I had relapsed earlier in the year, and had become addicted to Oxycontin, which I initially needed to treat myself for a broken leg. The leg finally healed, but my addictions had not. In my diseased, opiate hijacked brain, I created a story that my beloved canine companion, a true Angel of Love from God, had to leave me because of my spiritual corruption. My somewhat addled brain could not decipher the real gift of her beautiful presence in our lives until a time later, when healing could resume again within my heart.
One year later, to the very second, Rocky woke up, and howled for one minute at my father’s home.. Rocky had never done that before, and never did it again up until his own death in our home on June 23, 2016.
